Politics for many people is a 4-4 years enterprise. We get busy with life for 4 years, then come back again to social media to gyrate just before elections. As a voter, that’s not a bad place to be if you have your voting card and know your polling unit, as a participant and player, that’s not the place to be. If you want to harvest during political seasons, you need to plant well before the season.
A lot of energy is wasted during the political seasons, hating friends, arguing with colleagues, and spending so much energy in divisions orchestrated by people who are not so divided themselves. Some of the people you’re standing with making you stand against your brother or sister are actually sitting together in the same room and laughing over Isiewu and wine.
Here are a few thoughts to help manage your energy as we enter fully into the political season.
- People will like different people, don’t hold it against them. Sometimes people think that they need to make others look bad so that their own candidates can shine. That’s not necessary. Focus on the candidate you are supporting, project their good values and plans and resist the urge to wash another person’s candidate. Abusing people doesn’t make anyone better, it only makes you look funny when it’s all over.
- Everyone is free to declare. The declaration is not for the public, it’s for the party. The people who declare for a party ticket will still need to contest for the ticket at the primaries. Trying to make your candidate popular on social media ahead of primaries is a waste of energy. The delegates are not on social media, and even if they are, what determines their vote is not popularity online.
- There are stages to the political process. Stage 1 is the expression of interest (This costs N5m in APC), and Stage 2 is buying of the nomination form (N12m for PDP, 25m for APGA, and 40m for APC). Stage 3 is screening at the party. Then Stage 4 is securing the ticket at your party for the primaries. All of these stages do not require candidate popularity with the masses, they require politics at party levels. The fact that someone has declared doesn’t mean he or she has bought a nomination form, been screened, or secured primaries ticket. Manage your energy and expectations.
- Parties have a political structure for delivering votes to the electorate. At the National level, there are 2 parties contending. Every other party positioning candidates at the national level is really just making money from nomination forms or is trying to water downvotes from one of the 2 leading parties. If your presidential aspirant is not from APC or PDP, manage your energy. If you doubt this, just look at data for the last 23yrs. At state levels, there are parties that have the capacity to contend in some regions.
- All nominated applicants on a party ticket have 2 options after the primaries. To rally behind the person who wins the ticket or to decamp to another party where they will likely lose. What this means is, no player hating. The people you are supporting against each other may end up supporting each other.
There are more… but let’s stop for now. Manage your energy. Don’t get hypertension in Nigerian politics. Especially for the people in the diaspora who are so passionate about Nigeria because of their distance from it. Sometimes I think we make up for our distance with our passion, no diss intended.
For those who care to know, however, I think Nigeria is going to be in rebirth from 2023. What God has been planning for our nation has been in the works for 33 years, and it’s about to evolve. Prov 16:33 is the way it goes. “Make your motions and cast your votes, but God has the final say” – Ps 16:33 MSG
PS: Sorry if your candidate is not in this picture. This was the best I could get, plus, I believe that the next president is not in this picture 😂
